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THRONE//FRINGE: Normal Human Mech-Girl Quest

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Hell, we live in the barbaric aftermath of a fallen empire whose infrastructure, even in ruins, looks like something that must have been built by wizards or gods.

When, if not now, is it not a time for knights?
 
Zaealix said:
Yeah, See, that's why I went for the card.
Because if we joined with him? That means sure, we get to see his ultimate dream...
But then reality will crash in, in that he's going to either have to choose between dying right then and there, or with skulking off to nurse his wounds and return to being the untrustworthy rouge he is now.
But if he dies here?
He dies a Knight who fought to the last for his love, for what is right. He doesn't show us the zenith of what dreams can do, but he gives ARachne the sight of a martyr's death, perhaps even the seeds by which she could take up his knightly blade.
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I don't think Hidalgo expects to survive this, I think he wants this death, I think that's exactly what part of his dream is. It's the end he wants, the culmination of his romantiscism… and ultimately a complete and total rejection of his abject servitude. It's the heroic last stand in the face of seeming certainty, the rejection of the very idea that hope can falter in the face of evil.

Everything suggests there's next to nothing more that the Don wants than to die a good man's death. If he wants Arachne to trust him, to place her faith, her hopes and dreams with him… it's because he probably thinks this is the path to his martyr's end.

Expanding on my previous speculation, this Dream merger is a secret weapon he learned from his master, a terrible weapon he in part shackled to his principles. And I wonder, what dream could be grander than the Emperor's lost dream, who a more fearsome avenger than the dragon charged to hold onto and cherish that dream.

So yeah- the Knight option seems incredibly appealing, for secrets and insight, for character growth and finales… and for Don Hidalgo running into a petulant Ishtar.
 
[X] Trust the Knight [Initiate Finale: The Last Joust].

Ishtar annoyed me and I'm a messy bitch who lives for drama.
 
If I cannot speak to our hope allow me to double-down on the pragmatism.
Namely, if we best the King here with Don he just loses the Element. But with sufficent infrastructure those can be replaced easily enough.
But a political loss? Well.
That changes things. That produces chaos and knife-fighting the likes of which should tie up at least two political factions and possibly more. The sort of larger-scale issue a simple maiden can simply be lost in, given the King of Suicide's last stand will no doubt occupy enough time and attention to allow us to, if not reinforce our fiefdom and build our power, then to say, vanish into the Concierge's hotel and dissappear from the spotlight...
Until we emerge again at OUR choosing.
 
Zaealix said:
If I cannot speak to our hope allow me to double-down on the pragmatism.
Namely, if we best the King here with Don he just loses the Element. But with sufficent infrastructure those can be replaced easily enough.
But a political loss? Well.
That changes things. That produces chaos and knife-fighting the likes of which should tie up at least two political factions and possibly more. The sort of larger-scale issue a simple maiden can simply be lost in, given the King of Suicide's last stand will no doubt occupy enough time and attention to allow us to, if not reinforce our fiefdom and build our power, then to say, vanish into the Concierge's hotel and dissappear from the spotlight...
Until we emerge again at OUR choosing.
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This is a post-apocalyptic setting where the apocalypse had an apocalypse. The King's Element is immensely valuable and possibly more valuable than a political loss, because political power grows out of the barrel of your singularity gun, and building singularity guns is pretty goddamn hard right now. Arachne literally doesn't even have any idea where to start building something similar, and she's a pretty powerful potential force. More importantly, if Hidalgo does have something useful which can result in a reversal (which he implicitly does, because there is little reason for him to lie, given how the King wants him actually destroyed, and his base of political power broken), this is probably the best scenario to deploy it in - the enemy believes they have the upper hand and is more likely to expose themselves.

Also, if we want to talk pragmatism, Hidalgo's implicitly offering to blow some extremely powerful trump card of his. A trump card that he might well be able to use on us later. Getting our frenemy to blow his advantages here and now is going to make him more of a known threat and therefore less of a danger if and when we have to face him again. Meanwhile, not expending the wild card means we still have the wild card, and the Chance Illusion is throwing around some ludicrously powerful bullshit so they're probably a cut above the other sorts of foes we've been facing. There will definitely be opportunities for the wildcard if we don't expend it.
 
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Zaealix said:
If I cannot speak to our hope allow me to double-down on the pragmatism.
Namely, if we best the King here with Don he just loses the Element. But with sufficent infrastructure those can be replaced easily enough.
But a political loss? Well.
That changes things. That produces chaos and knife-fighting the likes of which should tie up at least two political factions and possibly more. The sort of larger-scale issue a simple maiden can simply be lost in, given the King of Suicide's last stand will no doubt occupy enough time and attention to allow us to, if not reinforce our fiefdom and build our power, then to say, vanish into the Concierge's hotel and dissappear from the spotlight...
Until we emerge again at OUR choosing.
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Alternatively, the Don's offer is only available in the immediate term. There's no reason we can't invoke the Wild Card once we've completed Project HYDRA and show the Suicide King why going after Arachne was suicidal.

If we presume that the King of Hearts will not be destroyed here, then there's merit in preserving what resources we can to muster a counter offensive.

Edit: Even from a cold hearted perspective... we can throw ourselves at the whims of a whimsical mad god once we summon them, and are then left with nothing save what it deigns to leave us with. Or... we could convince a potential enemy to seemingly suicide themselves to slay our current foe (I mean, come on- it's called the Last Joust for a reason), all while keeping the favor of the whimsical mad god in reserve. Naturally, the Knight choice is about a rejection of cold logic, and certain salvation with strings attached- but you can argue there's practical merit to the choice.
 
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MJ12 Commando said:
This is a post-apocalyptic setting where the apocalypse had an apocalypse. The King's Element is immensely valuable and possibly more valuable than a political loss, because political power grows out of the barrel of your singularity gun, and building singularity guns is pretty goddamn hard right now. Arachne literally doesn't even have any idea where to start building something similar, and she's a pretty powerful potential force. More importantly, if Hidalgo does have something useful which can result in a reversal (which he implicitly does, because there is little reason for him to lie, given how the King wants him actually destroyed, and his base of political power broken), this is probably the best scenario to deploy it in - the enemy believes they have the upper hand and is more likely to expose themselves.

Also, if we want to talk pragmatism, Hidalgo's implicitly offering to blow some extremely powerful trump card of his. A trump card that he might well be able to use on us later. Getting our frenemy to blow his advantages here and now is going to make him more of a known threat and danger if and when we have to face him again. Meanwhile, not expending the wild card means we still have the wild card, and the Chance Illusion is throwing around some ludicrously powerful bullshit so they're probably a cut above the other sorts of foes we've been facing. There will definitely be opportunities for the wildcard if we don't expend it.
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Building onto this, the King's Element is like, their thing. The big old beatstick they whip out when they want say, I'm here, bitches, and if you come at me, you better not miss. Once it's gone, it's symbolic power is shattered, almost as much as if you walked into their server hubs and took a big old piss on it. And we know that there are observers tooling around, and when the Catalogue suffers this big of a loss they will notice and begin to start making war plans to booli the King.
 
Remember that the Chance Illusion and the catalogue are not the same thing. These are two different factions working together.
 
Cetashwayo said:
The wildcard explicitly knows about the King of Hearts and references some 'rule' he is breaking by being here.
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Which to me sounds like an opportunity unto itself. After all, serving the King of Hearts up on a platter to someone who dislikes him sounds like a good starting point for a positive relationship with that person that dislikes the King of Hearts
 
[X] Trust the Knight [Initiate Finale: The Last Joust].

I feel like there is a non-zero chance that Hidalgo can use this to weaken his chains.
 
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